Graduate and Undergraduate Students:

The CAREERS (Cyberteam to Advance Research and Education in Eastern Regional Schools) Cyberteam Program is a 3-year initiative led by Yale University and funded by the NSF to grow the pool of Research Computing Facilitators (RCFs) available to support researchers at small and midsized institutions in Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island.

RCFs are experts at figuring out how to match the right computing resources and techniques to the task at hand, something that can stymie researchers who are, for example, sifting through billions of records to find a specific pattern of genes that correlates with a particular form of cancer; or examining massive quantities of sensor data to understand movements of the sea floor; or modeling complex molecular structures. When computing needs exceed the capacity of the researcher’s desktop or if some research software engineering help is needed, the RCF’s role is to help make use of local, regional, and national high-performance computing resources to meet the researcher’s needs.

We are looking for graduate or undergraduate students who have some computing experience and are interested in learning about research computing facilitation through an experiential training program where participants (virtually) join the project teams of researchers working on a computationally intensive projects for 3-6 month engagements. If matched to a project, you will be assigned an experienced mentor, and together you will provide assistance on research computing and/or data science to a researcher to help to move their project forward. Typically, a time commitment of 10-20 hours per week is required, and students receive a trainee stipend ranging from $3000-$6000, depending on the nature of the project and the level of the student. As part of the program, student RCFs will join a community of facilitators that has up-to-the-minute visibility into research computing projects and programs taking place in the region. In addition to project work, student RCFs will also have the opportunity to work on a live help desk with a mentor, honing their consultative skills while getting exposure to a broad range of research computing technology and topics.

Currently available projects can be viewed at the CAREERS Cyberteam Portal (https://careers-ct.cyberinfrastructure.org). Since we’ve just started, there aren’t many projects listed yet, but we expect the number of projects and their scientific diversity to grow rapidly. We have a few Rutgers and NJIT projects there already. The location of each researcher is noted, but co-location is not required in most cases. We especially encourage qualified women and minorities to participate, as increasing diversity in the RCF community (and in advanced computing and data science, more generally) is an important program goal.

To apply to become a student facilitator (or a mentor, if you have the experience) for any of the projects listed on the Portal, or to be considered for future projects, click on “Join the Team” to register for the CAREERS Cyberteam and create a profile on the Portal. If you prefer, you can also send an email expressing your interest along with a brief bio to our program managers, Kaylea Nelson kaylea.nelson@yale.edu and Julie Ma, jma@mghpcc.org.

Of course, you can also reach-out to me with questions. I’ll be serving as a mentor for a few of the projects.

Galen

Galen Collier, PhD